Circuit Studio reboot

[jtowich]

I've been using Circuit Studio for over a year, not real happy with Altium's lack of support. But today I got an email, on July 6 CS price will drop to $995 with $150 yearly maintenance. Those who have paid the full price (up to $3k) will get a lifetime subscription to updates, no maintenance fees ever. Long awaited update v1.2 was released and a promise of v2 by the end of the year.

Glad to see it not dying. Those who paid the full price may be irked, but the lifetime subscription should ease the pain. Hope Altium/Newark does a better job this round.

[ebclr]

I would expand my money on this, instead of the Kid toy expensive pcb software proteus. At least Altium is pró

[alexmackuk]

I paid the full price and I am not irked .

I've been using it extensively since it was released  (and moaning at Altium to get behind it). The lifetime support, maintenance and upgrades seem like a pretty fair reward for being an early adopter.

I'm glad to see the product moving forward again and at <$1000 it is an absolute steal.

I was offered an upgrade to Altium Designer and I've used AD professionally when I'm on contract but to be honest I prefer the UI of Circuit Studio, I do not need the higher-end features of AD (and I can work around most limitations ) and even at the previous prices the initial cost of AD and the ongoing/maintenance costs were just far more than I was willing to pay for my own use.

Oh, BTW I've got Proteus Level 3 with Advanced Simulation too and I shall probably be keeping that current to support legacy projects. Of the two I would say that Circuit Studio is more capable but Proteus is by no means bad and, specifically, the options for simulation in Proteus are way better. The reporting and diagnostics of Circuit Studio are superior and when managing complex track widths, pad-stacks, different clearances for different power rails and such the 'rules' based approach of CS/Altium is much easier to manage and control. As usual though with great power comes great complexity and I would say it is easier to screw up in CS. Oh, push routing is very nice too... but that has been promised soon in Proteus... although obviously it's already present and functional in CS.

[ebclr]

Take a look at this

My 1st impression is good

https://www.quadcept.com

[PCB.Wiz]

Interesting news.  I have a couple of questions which perhaps someone might kindly be able to help answer?

(a) I gather from some of the 2015 time-frame reviews that stability and feature completeness (missing essential and non working features) were early problems.  How stable and well featured is CS presently?

Keep in mind that missing essential and non working features may  well be deliberate product positioning decisions.
Altium do not want CS to eat AD's lunch. (but they do want to avoid users choosing something else, like Eagle, KiCad etc )

IIRC there was a comparison PDF at Element14*, and one removal that made me chuckle was circular holes only in CS, no slots.
Usually things like Scripts and Import/Export are also crippled, again it's all about turf protection.

Whenever you know a EDA vendor has a higher-end offering, you can be sure they carefully control the features missing in the low end offering.
A Classic case of  the old sales trick of " The BIG print giveth and the fine print taketh away"

Found it here
https://www.element14.com/community/docs/DOC-76216/l/circuitstudio-by-altium-vs-altium-designer-feature-and-specification-comparison

[Monkeh]

Interesting news.  I have a couple of questions which perhaps someone might kindly be able to help answer?

(a) I gather from some of the 2015 time-frame reviews that stability and feature completeness (missing essential and non working features) were early problems.  How stable and well featured is CS presently?

Keep in mind that missing essential and non working features may  well be deliberate product positioning decisions.
Altium do not want CS to eat AD's lunch. (but they do want to avoid users choosing something else, like Eagle, KiCad etc )

IIRC there was a comparison PDF at Element14*, and one removal that made me chuckle was circular holes only in CS, no slots.
Usually things like Scripts and Import/Export are also crippled, again it's all about turf protection.

Whenever you know a EDA vendor has a higher-end offering, you can be sure they carefully control the features missing in the low end offering.
A Classic case of  the old sales trick of " The BIG print giveth and the fine print taketh away"

Found it here
https://www.element14.com/community/docs/DOC-76216/l/circuitstudio-by-altium-vs-altium-designer-feature-and-specification-comparison

So if you pay for Circuit Studio you get less than Circuit Maker offers.

Hilarious.

[LabSpokane]

Interesting news.  I have a couple of questions which perhaps someone might kindly be able to help answer?

(a) I gather from some of the 2015 time-frame reviews that stability and feature completeness (missing essential and non working features) were early problems.  How stable and well featured is CS presently?

Keep in mind that missing essential and non working features may  well be deliberate product positioning decisions.
Altium do not want CS to eat AD's lunch. (but they do want to avoid users choosing something else, like Eagle, KiCad etc )

IIRC there was a comparison PDF at Element14*, and one removal that made me chuckle was circular holes only in CS, no slots.
Usually things like Scripts and Import/Export are also crippled, again it's all about turf protection.

Whenever you know a EDA vendor has a higher-end offering, you can be sure they carefully control the features missing in the low end offering.
A Classic case of  the old sales trick of " The BIG print giveth and the fine print taketh away"

Found it here
https://www.element14.com/community/docs/DOC-76216/l/circuitstudio-by-altium-vs-altium-designer-feature-and-specification-comparison

So if you pay for Circuit Studio you get less than Circuit Maker offers.

Hilarious.

Don't believe everything you read. Slots are no problem in CS. It's miles better than anything I saw in CM.

Most of those "missing" features are gingerbread.

[Monkeh]

Don't believe everything you read. Slots are no problem in CS. It's miles better than anything I saw in CM.

So they just can't make their mind up? I suppose that's not news.

[LabSpokane]

Don't believe everything you read. Slots are no problem in CS. It's miles better than anything I saw in CM.

So they just can't make their mind up? I suppose that's not news.

If Altium sticks with $1k for CS, they will kill the competition. What is there is meat and potatoes PCB design. This gets CS out of the pricing  valley of death. Before everyone bashes CS into the ground, I'd recommend a trying it. Between the vault, the ease of manual routing, autorouting, And documentation generation tools, there's a lot to like. Will you design cell phones on it? Of course not.

[PCB.Wiz]

Don't believe everything you read. Slots are no problem in CS. It's miles better than anything I saw in CM.

Most of those "missing" features are gingerbread.

Hmm, so do not believe the PDF's ?

What about important (non gingerbread) things like Shove on Trace move, and Scripting, and Import/Export ?

The more I field test KiCad's Shove router, the more I like it. (eg It has a rather smarter polygon-drag engine, than Mentor's shove router.)

[LabSpokane]

Don't believe everything you read. Slots are no problem in CS. It's miles better than anything I saw in CM.

Most of those "missing" features are gingerbread.

Hmm, so do not believe the PDF's ?

What about important (non gingerbread) things like Shove on Trace move, and Scripting, and Import/Export ?

The more I field test KiCad's Shove router, the more I like it. (eg It has a rather smarter polygon-drag engine, than Mentor's shove router.)

If you're talking slotted holes, I just made those today. Works fine. As for slotted pads, I'll check later.

The features to value proposition works for me at $1k. If it doesn't for you, fine. 

And behold: slotted pads.  And I managed to do it without instructions after 1 day on the job...

[PCB.Wiz]

If you're talking slotted holes, I just made those today. Works fine. As for slotted pads, I'll check later.

The features to value proposition works for me at $1k. If it doesn't for you, fine.

Given the inaccuracy of the PDFs, I was attempting to better define what that 'features to value proposition' actually is, on the real product.
Are these confirmed as missing (DOCs say they are not there, or limited)

Does CS have Shove Router ?
Does CS have scripting ?
What formats can CS import/Export ?

[LabSpokane]

If you're talking slotted holes, I just made those today. Works fine. As for slotted pads, I'll check later.

The features to value proposition works for me at $1k. If it doesn't for you, fine.

Given the inaccuracy of the PDFs, I was attempting to better define what that 'features to value proposition' actually is, on the real product.
Are these confirmed as missing (DOCs say they are not there, or limited)

Does CS have Shove Router ?
Does CS have scripting ?
What formats can CS import/Export ?

By "shove router" if you mean it automatically reroutes a trace while dragging it with the mouse, yes and it is brilliant.

No clue on the others.

If you really want to know all the details, just download it and request a 30 day demo license. I'm hoping the $995 is real. Compared to Eagle, that's just too good to be true.

[PCB.Wiz]

By "shove router" if you mean it automatically reroutes a trace while dragging it with the mouse, yes and it is brilliant.

Shove routers push/shove other traces and vias out of the way, to make a path.
A routing tool that keeps clearance, but does not shove, is more sketch/guided routing.

[EEVblog]

I've been using Circuit Studio for over a year, not real happy with Altium's lack of support. But today I got an email, on July 6 CS price will drop to $995 with $150 yearly maintenance.

I don't like saying "I told them so" (no one would buy it at the price), but , I told them so 

[EEVblog]

Can Circuit Studio save and load Altium Designer files, and vice-versa?
If so I think I'm sold at $1k, it is the killer price point I told them over and over again would work.

[EEVblog]

Woah, no basic manufacturing DRC in CS?

Basic manufacturing rules Annular ring, acute angle, hole size, layer pairs, hole to
hole clearance, minimum solder mask sliver, silk to solder
mask, silk to silk, net antennae, silk to board region

[EEVblog]

I hope it is true. Once at a time AD was dropped to $3k, and now it is back to $6k (both without mandatory 1 year subscription).

I remember that day vividly!
Nick Martin called everyone into the canteen at the old Altium building at Frenches Forest as a said (close enough direct quote) "We are burning our bridges, we can't go back to high priced tools"
(They slashed prices by 75%)
Within 12 months the price was creeping back up to normal 
http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1311978

[janoc]

Take a look at this

My 1st impression is good

https://www.quadcept.com

Cheesy website that crashes browsers with all those stupid "slides" and videos, talks about "makers" and the top-most feature listed is - cloud (and subscription based licensing).

Sorry, first impression is - "don't wanna ..."

[EEVblog]

If you really want to know all the details, just download it and request a 30 day demo license. I'm hoping the $995 is real. Compared to Eagle, that's just too good to be true.

Even with the limitations compared to AD, yes, it blows Eagle out of the water.
Coincidental timing with Autodesk buying Eagle?

[mikeselectricstuff]

I wonder how scared PCB software manufacturers are that Kicad will become a viable alternative?
(I've not used it so no idea how close it's getting, but have seen plenty of decent PCBs done with it)

[PCB.Wiz]

Can Circuit Studio save and load Altium Designer files, and vice-versa?

Only with Caveats ( of course!)

Another forum has this (oct 2015)
"2. CS does not support the importation of AD14 file formats. Currently, we support anything AD10 and older to include PCAD (Along with just about all mainstream competitive formats). However, you will want to make sure that you load all of the importers from the Extensions and Updates panel in CS..."

Can you save back to AD10 from a AD14+ system ? (or save to the expected P-CAD format ?)
P-CAD (ACCEL_NETLIST looks a nice standard that can open in Eagle and kiCad).
Can CS export P-CAD ?

[tszaboo]

Can Circuit Studio save and load Altium Designer files, and vice-versa?
If so I think I'm sold at $1k, it is the killer price point I told them over and over again would work.

AD opens CS files no problem. CS can import eagle, and I think it can import AD through some 3rd party export. Which is ludicrous. And you cannot open AD library. All your libraries have to be re-created in CS. They have a bunch of standard IPC footprint in one of the folders, to help you. But you know what was the real let-down for me? They had a bunch of USB connector footprints. So I opened them. Something did not look OK. So i figured out, they should have used slotted holes for the connector, but since it does not support it, it was a much smaller round hole. No-one even bothered looking at it at Altium, seeing if what they release is any good.
CS is also slow. Meaning you cannot do things fast in it. Intentionally. And the "please wait a moment"-"catastrophic failure" error messages start happening at 500MB memory usage.

[EEVblog]

I wonder how scared PCB software manufacturers are that Kicad will become a viable alternative?

I doubt they are worried. They know it's never going to be good enough (not just technically) to convince companies to take it up instead of the established tools.

[EEVblog]

AD opens CS files no problem. CS can import eagle, and I think it can import AD through some 3rd party export. Which is ludicrous.

 

And you cannot open AD library. All your libraries have to be re-created in CS.